This is a blog written by the man in the street for the man in the street; we are not presenting authoritative or ‘academic papers’ but sharing our thoughts and views, faithful to the Magisterium of today and yesterday (we hope!) Comments made and Posts to which we link are not necessarily supported by the authors of this blog, nor are the posts of either blogger the responsibility or views of the other!

Pages

Tuesday, 26 May 2015

Marriage and family: A Consideration

Marriage
is often referred to as the building block or foundation of society, which
seems rather difficult to disagree with since it is by the stability of
marriage that society generates stable people. As the Guardian reported, the
Office of National Statistics states that figures indicate children of married
parent families suffer less mental health problems than those brought up by single
parents (see here); and as the study by Osborne, Mclanan and
Brooks-Gunn at the University of Texas appears to indicate, “children born to married versus cohabiting
parents have fewer reported behavioral problems at age three, and that
differences in parental background characteristics account for 30% to 50% of
the differences in child outcomes at age 3. The remaining differences in child
behavior can largely be explained by differences in household income and
maternal health behaviors. Marriage following a cohabiting birth is not
associated with fewer child behavioral problems” (here). Taking both
of these into consideration, it might well be said that children reared in
marriages better understand where they come from and what their role in life is
as a man or a woman.

The
family is also the place in which the stability and unity of family life allows
us to take risks knowing we are loved, valued and cared for unconditionally. It
is the unit in which we learn mutual respect and develop a sense of justice,
fairness, mutual support and respectful challenge. I’m sure you could add to
this list, but I hope the point is made that we learn about ourselves, others
and social interaction within the family, taking all we have learned there with
us into the adult world. As the 2008 Summit report ‘Cohabitation, Marriage and
Child Wellbeing’ from the National Marriage Project (see here) reminds us,
children raised outside an intact marriage are much more likely to suffer from
psychiatric disorders, diseases, suicide attempts, alcoholism, and drug abuse. All
the above considered, it is thus reasonable to conclude that marriage is indeed
the bedrock or foundation of society.

Many
today might claim marriage to be a social construct, others as the formal union
of two persons who love each other, or yet others as the legalisation of a
romantic relationship. Well, it may be a social construct in regard to its
formalisation, but it is surely part of man’s nature: would not parents would
stay together because both desired to protect and nurture their offspring?
There may have been no formal marriage ceremony in the Stone Age, but surely parenting
of their offspring was the natural response of both parents?

Traditional
Catholics and others are often accused by liberals of holding to an ‘ideology’
of marriage that today’s society has outgrown; accused of failing to recognise
that there are many types of ‘marriage’ and ‘family’. But Marriage and family are
not an ‘ideology’ that Traditional
Catholics unrelentingly hold to; Marriage is a union of life and love. Many people
have no problem recognising a ‘love’ element: they will see it as feelings of
affection for the other and the will to care for the other (thus they divorce
if their romantic feelings are turned to another person or if they perceive
themselves as being oppressed in the marriage and harmed rather than cared for.)
When it comes to the sharing of ‘life’ however, they most often appear to mean
‘a lifetime’ or ‘a lifestyle’, and will end the ‘lifetime’ part if the
‘lifestyles’ begin to differ significantly and become ‘irreconcilable
differences’.

But
the sharing of life in marriage goes beyond the sharing of a lifestyle or a lifetime to the sharing of life
itself; the sharing of one’s life-giving power for the procreation and rearing
of offspring. Without the sharing of the life-potential the act of copulation
is not so much a love-life as an act of lust-relieving. It is in this aspect of
lust-relief that contraceptive sex and homosexual acts both run contrary to
nature, since both make use of the procreative act in a way that eliminates its
primary and unique purpose: that of procreation. (The Marriage of infertile
couples is still true marriage because they are open to receiving new life; it
is marriages entered into with a clear decision notto cooperate with the
generation of new life that are a different matter). We often hear it said that
the act is also used to bond the couple, and while that can of course be
recognised as true, it is equally true that bonding can occur in other ways
than by sex (we bond with parents, siblings and friends without engaging in sex
acts with them), so sex is not to be seen as simply about bonding or used only
for bonding).

Today
the word ‘marriage’ is applied to the formalisation of all sorts of affectionate
relationships: men and men; women and women, people with animals (here)
and even people with buildings (here). The
reality of marriage as a ‘sharing in life and love’ is not possible in these
relationships, so they cannot be marriage,
no matter who decides to label them as such -be that the Irish Government, the
UK Government, the USA Government or the UN. While ‘marriage’ between a person
and a building obviously excludes a sharing in the life of the other since it
is ‘union’ with an inanimate, non-living object, so too is the union between persons
of the same sex where all that can be shared is a lifestyle and a lifetime, not life itself (it cannot generate new life). And yes,
homosexual pairings can share a lifetime
and a lifestyle together, but they
cannot share life with one another, anymore than a person can share life
with a building or their budgerigar, for even though they share a living space
and may share it for life, none of these pairings can generate new life. Adoption
by a homosexual pair does not rectify the absence of new life since they rely
upon the natural couple of male/female to ‘provide’ the child; it is not
equivalent to adoption by an infertile couple where the natural reality of
father, mother and child is replicated.

Natural
marriage and families should thus be protected and promoted as the bedrock of
human society, for it is in the natural family alone that humanity recreates
itself, sustains itself, nurtures itself and learns to live as a fair and
caring society. Governments that allow all sorts of living arrangements to be
labelled ‘marriage’ and ‘family’ have fallen prey to emotionalism rather than
reason; they have become puppets to emotions rather than masters of reason. They
claim to follow modern science but actually follow emotions, not biology. In
praying for them I am not praying for greater intellects to lead us; I am
asking God to “give us the wisdom that sits by your throne.” (Wisdom 9v4). It
is not professional theologians that we need: these can lead us astray from
Christ’s message when they subjugate defined Doctrine to their intellectual
appraisal; what we need is the Wisdom of God, which is not synonymous with
education: the old lady with rosary in hand can be far wiser than the theology
professor who modernises doctrine to fit with the age. Yes, “We do talk of a
wisdom, it is true, but not a philosophy of this age or of the masters of this
age” (2 Cor.2v6-7). What we need is the true wisdom that comes from God; the Truth
which sets us free from bondage to our pride and from acquiescing to our
passions. Modern society has lost sight of wisdom and followed mere education.
The former really ought not to have been excluded from the latter, but it was
as soon as Rationalism invaded the Church and the Gospels subjected to methods
of study that treated it merely as a piece of ancient literature and not as the
word of God who “is the same yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13v8).

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please comment using a pseudonym, not as 'anonymous'. If you challenge the Magisterium, please do so respectfully. We reserve the right to delete from comments any inflammatory remarks.If we do not reply to your comment it is through lack of time rather than interest.